Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber

Author:Leanna Renee Hieber
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Love & Romance, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, United States, Historical, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781402260537
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Published: 2011-11-01T00:55:43+00:00

June 15

3:30 a.m.

(Awakened by a mixture of determination and fear)

I will attempt to re-create my latest nightmare as best I can, turning the key of my bedside gas lamp high. In the light, the shadows of my mind lessen into a creature whose teeth recede. But goodness, my mind does have its fangs.

A street corner at dusk. I stood with the city moving around me. Before I even knew where I was, I was struck by the quality of the lamplight. It cast shadows long and deep. But, as with many things in my life of late, the shadows were a bit off. Surreal. Full of a life one would not expect of shadows.

Cast by carriages and their horses, by persons young and old, men in top hats and women with too many ruffles on their skirts to be practical, the shadows swirled like mist or a drop of ink into water. But when I looked at the shadows directly, they were only that, a shape that blocked light. The moment I focused on a passerby or an architectural detail, the shadows were off, moving into the corners of my eyes again.

Glancing about, I realized I stood in the middle of Manhattan, at the southern foot of Central Park where the city begins again with those grand blocks where the Vanderbilt mansion is lord, with its pomp and impressive circumstance. The grandeur of wealth attracts passersby at such a twilight time. It’s an hour to be seen, that particular moment of dusk when there’s a bit of magic in the air, when women don fine clothing and lovers might steal a moment in the shadows before they are expected beneath the glittering chandeliers of polite company.

The others on the street reflected my own fascination. It is hard to live in New York and not be compelled by the city’s grandeur. Each passing face was full of hopeful possibility, persons en route to a fine dinner in some nearby mansion, out to the symphony or the opera, or off to an exclusive society club.

New York, the great city of bustling desire.

It moved around me, as if I were a stone in a babbling brook.

Out of the sea of faces I then saw him, there before the estate of one of the most powerful New Yorkers. His silhouette—I would know it anywhere. Perhaps I was dreaming of the sort of life Denbury would lead were he an English lord in New York City, free from his curse, and I was looking in on his life and the places where it might lead him.

But then he turned to stare me down. This was not the face of the compelling soul of the Denbury who entranced me, but the odd, primal gaze of the one who repulsed me. His lip curled before he lunged at me. I was seized by the specific sort of panic that, from an early age, has made speech impossible.

Instinct made me run. I picked up my skirts and fled, thankful to be wearing sensible boots on the treacherous cobbles.

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